Connor Desai credits living in a walk-able community, late nights and a smart phone with helping her manage her busy life. As a Seattle-based singer/songwriter, Connor juggles recording, performing, and touring, with caring for her twin boys and daughter. With all that on her plate, she still finds time to volunteer at her kids’ schools and hit the town with her hubby once a week.
1. What do you love about being a mom?
I love how even though I am the one in authority, they are constantly teaching me without knowing it. Your kids know you better than anyone in a very basic and humbling way.
2. What do you enjoy most about working?
The break from mothering! No, but seriously, I love the release that writing and performing music gives me. There is nothing else I’ve done that can compare with that feeling – a mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration and security in my own individuality.
3. What’s your biggest challenge in juggling both?
Finding time to compose is my biggest challenge. Before kids, I could just hole up in my room for large periods of time with no one to distract me. Now, I have to grab moments here and there in which to write songs, and there has never been a time when I haven’t been interrupted. Lots of scratch recordings have kids screaming in the background which always appalled my band mates.
4. How do you deal with it?
I just sort of learned to keep charging through the chaos. My kids know that I won’t drop everything to come and help them (unless, of course, it’s an emergency). They have to work things out on their own. If I dropped every song to try to help them through some disagreement, I would never get anything written.
5. How do you re-charge?
My husband and I are pretty religious about going out on our own at least one night a week. It’s a great time to reconnect and remember how we were able to talk to each other before all the (welcome) distractions.
6. What advice would you give other women considering being a working mom?
Don’t worry that you need to be there for your kids’ every misstep. In fact, I think the more learning outlets your kids have, the better equipped they’ll be to succeed in the world.
7. Who inspires you?
Laura Veirs. She’s always had an admirable career marked by her fierce creative and personal integrity. She just had her first baby and she is already planning to take him on her next road tour, with her parents in tow for childcare.
8. What one thing can you not live without?
Great childcare.
9. If you had an hour of time to yourself, how would you spend it?
Writing or recording. Or, maybe sleeping.
